Although this could easily fit in the Gun Rights thread, I am giving it its own thread in the belief that this is profoundly important and that in the coming months this subject is going to become huge.

Hoping for a serious analysis by Big Dog to help us get started:======================Arms Trade Treaty – The Hell With Congress

Manasquan, NJ --(Ammoland.com)- There is a widespread misunderstanding on the part of American gun-owners, evidenced in gun blogs and in commentaries on articles dealing with the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT).

The crux of this misunderstanding is that, since there are checks and balances in our Constitution, and since the Constitution clearly states that ratification of a treaty can only occur “provided two thirds of the Senators present concur,” this is almost impossible to come about.

Therefore, we will never be subjected to the constraints of, and penalties for, violations of an Arms Trade Treaty.

Most of those who voice this sentiment do so vehemently, and with all certainty that this is fact, rather than merely conjecture.

What they refuse to acknowledge is that when it comes to words —even those in our sacred blueprint for a representative government, the Constitution— nothing is actually all black and white; when it comes to words —especially words that were penned more than 2 centuries earlier when the world was very different— it will almost always be possible to find grey areas that can be breached to achieve a desired political goal.

The fact is that our Constitution does not protect us against the growing customary international law or the growing norm of global civilian disarmament.

There are many references in the literature which address this situation. We will cite only two: “The Second Amendment and Global Gun Control,” by Joseph Bruce Alonso (Journal on Firearms & Public Policy, Vol. 15), and “The Human Right of Self-Defense” by David B. Kopel, Paul Gallant & Joanne D. Eisen (Brigham Young University Journal of Public Law, Vol 22, Number 1).

These two papers provide carefully documented proof that ratification of an international treaty can occur —and can be made binding to U.S. citizens— without any Senate action at all!

But this is not simply our opinion. The hyperlinks below are provided for convenience, so that any reader can judge for him- or herself as to the veracity of this thesis as part of current international law.

Alonso notes that “There are a variety of ways that these [international] gun control laws could affect the rights and obligations of parties within the United States.”

He enumerates some of the mechanisms which might come into play to effect such a scenario:

“The first way is the possibility that the President of the United States signs…[a treaty]. Signature by a United States President would indicate to the international community that the United States intends to abide by the gun control laws, with or without ratification by the Senate.”“A second way these gun control laws could affect United States parties is in the event that gun control becomes a customary international law. Even if the United States did not sign on to either treaty, if the United States began to abide by the treaties, the United States may, in effect, be consenting to the treaties becoming customary international law. In the eyes of an international court, the United States, by following the treaties, is consenting to be bound by the treaties in the future. To avoid accidental consent, the United States should expressly state that as a nation, the United States does not consent to the gun control treaties and that any activity consistent with the treaties is not intended to recognize the treaties’ legal status. If the United States does not make such an express statement to the international community, the United States might, arguably, be expected to maintain any and all gun control measures that the treaties require.”“A third way the gun control measures could affect United States parties is through nonconsensual customary law. Nonconsensual customary international law may arise as a result of international practice. This international practice may be evidenced by events not approved by the United States but eventually held binding on the United States….In many ways, the international community is in agreement on gun control, with the exception being the United States. The respect and adherence by numerous countries to strict gun control adds weight to the notion that a common understanding of how sovereign states must deal with private gun ownership can be established with or without every country’s consent.”

Not only are there grey areas in the treaty ratification process, but they are also present in the ways in which our country can be dragged into war.

According to the U.S. Constitution, Section 8, “The Congress shall have Power To….declare War….” However, in the course of our research, we spotted an item printed in the March 8, 2012 edition of the Canada Free Press. An article entitled Obama Admin Cites Int’l Permission, Not Congress, as ‘Legal Basis’ For Action in Syria stated: “Under question from Sen. Sessions at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing today, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey indicated that ‘international permission,’ rather than Congressional approval, provided a ‘legal basis’ for military action by the United States.”

The video above includes the interview, and the replies from Panetta and Dempsey to Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), are nothing short of mind-boggling to hear! In response to Panetta and Dempsey concerning the issue of Congressional approval, Sen. Sessions replied incredulously: “Well, I’m almost breathless about that. Because what I heard you say was we’re going to seek international approval, and you will come and tell the Congress what we might do….”

The fact is that the U.S. Constitution was written two centuries ago, and we live in a very different world. Times change, and there are many things that our Founding Fathers never anticipated when they wrote the Constitution onto parchment with quill and ink. It is obviously now possible to be forced into a war without the approval of Congress.

And it is also now possible to be forced to abide by the terms of a treaty —like the ATT— without Congressional approval.

According to Kopel, Gallant & Eisen (p. 54-55):

“Having been selected as Special Rapporteur by the old Human Rights Commission, [Barbara] Frey delivered her final report to the new Human Rights Council on July 27, 2006. On August 24, 2006, the UN Human Rights Council’s subcommission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights endorsed the Frey report, and announced that all national governments were required by international human rights law to implement various listed gun control provisions; the subcommission recommended that the full Human Rights Council also adopt the report and issue a similar mandate. Of course the subcommission has little power to enforce its wishes directly, but the declaration gives national government officials, including courts, considerable support to promote restrictive gun laws which are, according to the UN, mandated by international law. The full Human Rights Council is scheduled to take up the issue, and indications at the time of this writing suggest that the full Council will ratify most or all of Frey’s report. The Chairman of the full Human Rights Council has already announced his enthusiastic support for the Frey Report, the subcommission’s adoption of the report, and the prospect of using the Human Rights Council to advance a worldwide gun control mandate. The Frey Report, then, is not simply a scholarly paper that will be filed away in a United Nations library. It is an effort to establish a new norm of international human rights law, and this effort to establish the new norm is supported by the United Nations Human Rights Council, as one aspect of the UN’s far-ranging support for restrictive and confiscatory firearms policies (emphasis ours).”

The Frey report should be required reading for all Americans – gun-owner and non-gun-owner alike, for there is every likelihood that the ATT, in some form, will be enacted! And her report—which represents the UN’s view and the new world “norm,” is one of the scariest documents one can find to describe what our America would look like if the ATT proponents have their way!

The UN has been able to twist the individual human right of self-defense into a human rights abuse against a perpetrator. In the words of Barbara Frey:

“Self-defence is sometimes designated as a ‘right’. There is inadequate legal support for such an interpretation. Self-defence is more properly characterized as a means of protecting the right to life and, as such, a basis for avoiding responsibility for violating the rights of another. No international human right of self-defence is expressly set forth in the primary sources of international law: treaties, customary law, or general principles.”

So much for our Constitution and its Bill of Rights!

About the authors:Dr. Paul Gallant and Dr. Joanne D. Eisen practice optometry and dentistry, respectively, on Long Island, NY, and have collaborated on firearm politics for the past 20 years. They have also collaborated with David B. Kopel since 2000, and are Senior Fellows at the Independence Institute, where Kopel is Research Director. Most recently, Gallant and Eisen have also written with Alan J. Chwick. Sherry Gallant has been instrumental in the editing of virtually all of the authors’ writings, and is immensely knowledgeable in the area of firearm politics; she actively co-authored this article.

JUDGES should interpret the Constitution according to other nations' legal "norms." Sharia law could apply to disputes in US courts. The United States constitutes an "axis of disobedience" along with North Korea and Saddam-era Iraq.

Those are the views of the man on track to become one of the US government's top lawyers: Harold Koh.

President Obama has nominated Koh -- until last week the dean of Yale Law School -- to be the State Department's legal adviser. In that job, Koh would forge a wide range of international agreements on issues from trade to arms control, and help represent our country in such places as the United Nations and the International Court of Justice.

It's a job where you want a strong defender of America's sovereignty. But that's not Koh. He's a fan of "transnational legal process," arguing that the distinctions between US and international law should vanish.

What would this look like in a practical sense? Well, California voters have overruled their courts, which had imposed same-sex marriage on the state. Koh would like to see such matters go up the chain through federal courts -- which, in turn, should look to the rest of the world. If Canada, the European Human Rights Commission and the United Nations all say gay marriage should be legal -- well, then, it should be legal in California too, regardless of what the state's voters and elected representatives might say.

He even believes judges should use this "logic" to strike down the death penalty, which is clearly permitted in the US Constitution.

The primacy of international legal "norms" applies even to treaties we reject. For example, Koh believes that the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child -- a problematic document that we haven't ratified -- should dictate the age at which individual US states can execute criminals. Got that? On issues ranging from affirmative action to the interrogation of terrorists, what the rest of the world says, goes.

Including, apparently, the world of radical imams. A New York lawyer, Steven Stein, says that, in addressing the Yale Club of Greenwich in 2007, Koh claimed that "in an appropriate case, he didn't see any reason why sharia law would not be applied to govern a case in the United States."

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++Think about this: the State Dept. job might be a launching pad for a Supreme Court nomination. (He’s on many liberals’ short lists for the high court.) Since this job requires Senate confirmation, it’s certainly a useful trial run.

What happens to Koh in the Senate will send an important signal. If he sails through to State, he’s a far better bet to make it onto the Supreme Court. So Senate Republicans have a duty to expose and confront his radical views.

Even though he’s up for a State Department job, Koh is a key test case in the “judicial wars.” If he makes it through (which he will if he gets even a single GOP vote) the message to the Obama team will be: You can pick ‘em as radical as you like.

‘This is an administration that is determined to conduct itself by the rule of law. And to the extent that we receive lawful requests from an appropriately created court, we would obviously respond to it.”

It was springtime in Berlin and Eric Holder, a well-known “rule of law” devotee, was speaking to the German press. He’d been asked if his Justice Department would cooperate with efforts by foreign or international tribunals to prosecute U.S. government officials who carried out the Bush administration’s post-9/11 counterterrorism policies. The attorney general assured listeners that he was certainly open to being helpful. “Obviously,” he said, “we would look at any request that would come from a court in any country and see how and whether we should comply with it.”

As the Associated Press reported at the time, Holder was “pressed on whether that meant the United States would cooperate with a foreign court prosecuting Bush administration officials.” He skirted the question in a way Americans ought to find alarming. The attorney general indicated that he was speaking only about “evidentiary requests.” Translation: The Obama administration will not make arrests and hand current or former American government officials over for foreign trials, but if the Europeans or U.N. functionaries (at the nudging of, say, the Organization of the Islamic Conference) want Justice’s help gathering evidence in order to build triable cases — count us in.

Hue and cry followed Holder’s decision this week to have a prosecutor investigate CIA interrogators and contractors. The probe is a nakedly political, banana republic-style criminalizing of policy differences and political rivalry. The abuse allegations said to have stunned the attorney general into acting are outlined in a stale CIA inspector general’s report. Though only released this week — a disclosure timed to divert attention from reports that showed the CIA’s efforts yielded life-saving intelligence — the IG report is actually five years old. Its allegations not only have been long known to the leaders of both parties in Congress, they were thoroughly investigated by professional prosecutors — not political appointees. Those prosecutors decided not to file charges, except in one case that ended in an acquittal. As I outline here, the abuse in question falls woefully short of torture crimes under federal law.

Americans are scratching their heads: Why would Holder retrace this well-worn ground when intimidating our intelligence-gatherers so obviously damages national security? The political fallout, too, is palpable. Leon Panetta, the outraged CIA director, is reportedly pondering resignation. President Obama, laying low in the tall grass on his Martha’s Vineyard vacation, is having staffers try to put distance between himself and his attorney general. It is unlikely that many will be fooled: Both Obama and Holder promised their antiwar base just this sort of “reckoning” during the 2008 campaign. But the question remains, Why is Holder (or, rather, why are Holder and the White House) instigating this controversy?

I believe the explanation lies in the Obama administration’s fondness for transnationalism, a doctrine of post-sovereign globalism in which America is seen as owing its principal allegiance to the international legal order rather than to our own Constitution and national interests.

Recall that the president chose to install former Yale Law School dean Harold Koh as his State Department’s legal adviser. Koh is the country’s leading proponent of transnationalism. He is now a major player in the administration’s deliberations over international law and cooperation. Naturally, membership in the International Criminal Court, which the United States has resisted joining, is high on Koh’s agenda. The ICC claims worldwide jurisdiction, even over nations that do not ratify its enabling treaty, notwithstanding that sovereign consent to jurisdiction is a bedrock principle of international law.

As a result, there have always been serious concerns that the ICC could investigate and try to indict American political, military, and intelligence officials for actions taken in defense of our country. Here it’s crucial to bear in mind that the United States (or at least the pre-Obama United States) has not seen eye-to-eye with Europe on significant national-security matters. European nations, for example, have accepted the 1977 Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions, while the United States has rejected it. Protocol I extends protections to terrorists and imposes an exacting legal regime on combat operations, relying on such concepts as “proportional” use of force and rigorous distinction between military and civilian targets. That is, Protocol I potentially converts traditional combat operations into war crimes. Similarly, though the U.S. accepted the torture provisions of the U.N. Convention Against Torture (UNCAT), our nation rejected the UNCAT’s placing of “cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment” on a par with torture. By contrast, Europe generally accepts the UNCAT in toto.

#pageAs long as we haven’t ratified a couple of bad human-rights treaties, why should we care that Europe considers them binding? Because of the monstrosity known as “customary international law,” of which Koh is a major proponent. This theory holds that once new legal principles gain broad acceptance among nations and international organizations, they somehow transmogrify into binding law, even for nations that haven’t agreed to them. That is, the judgment of the “international community” (meaning, the judgment of left-wing academics and human-rights activists who hold sway at the U.N. and the European Union) supersedes the standards our citizens have adopted democratically. It is standard fare among transnational progressives to claim that Protocol I is now binding on the United States and that what they define as cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment is “tantamount to torture.”

And the transnational Left has still another treat in store: its notion of “universal jurisdiction.” This theory holds that individual nations have the power to prosecute actions that occur in other countries, even when they have no impact on the prosecuting nation. The idea is that some offenses — such as torture and war crimes — so offend the purported consensus of humanity (i.e., so offend left-wing sensibilities) that they may be prosecuted by any country that cares to take the initiative. In fact, many countries (the United States included) open their justice systems to civil suits against government officials — again, even if the country where the suit is filed has nothing to do with the alleged offenses.

So we come back to Holder in Berlin. Two months before the attorney general’s visit, the U.N.’s “special rapporteur on torture” told German television that the Obama administration had “a clear obligation” under the UNCAT to file torture charges against former president George W. Bush and former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld. The rapporteur was relying on documents produced because of American investigations — including a nakedly partisan report by the Democrat-controlled Senate Armed Services Committee.

Meanwhile, as I detailed here in March, Spain’s universal-justice crusader Baltasar Garzón is pursuing his own torture case against Bush administration lawyers who weighed in on interrogation policy. Garzón is the Spanish investigating magistrate who, with the help of a terrorist turned human-rights lawyer, had Chilean strongman Augusto Pinochet arrested in England for crimes against humanity. The same terrorist-lawyer, Gonzalo Boye, is helping Garzón on the Bush case. The Brits, by the way, eventually decided not to send Pinochet to Spain, but not before the law lords ruled that they could, a decision enthusiastically hailed at the time by U.N. High Commissioner on Human Rights Mary Robinson, the former president of Ireland. That would be the same Mary Robinson of Durban infamy — the one President Obama just honored with the Medal of Freedom.

And then there is the Center for Constitutional Rights, a Marxist organization that for years has coordinated legal representation for terrorists detained at Guantanamo Bay. The CCR has been attempting to convince Germany, France, Spain, and other countries to file war-crime indictments against former Bush administration officials, including President Bush, Vice President Cheney, and Secretary Rumsfeld. In representing America’s enemies, CCR has collaborated with many private lawyers, who also volunteered their services — several of whom are now working in the Obama Justice Department. Indeed, Holder’s former firm boasts that it still represents 16 Gitmo detainees (the number was previously higher). And, for help shaping detainee policy, Holder recently hired Jennifer Daskal for DOJ’s National Security Division — a lawyer from Human Rights Watch with no prior prosecutorial experience, whose main qualification seems to be the startling advocacy she has done for enemy combatants.

Put it all together and it’s really not that hard to figure out what is going on here.

Transnationalists from outside and, now, inside our government have been ardent supporters of prosecutions against American officials who designed and carried out the Bush counterterrorism policies that kept this country safe after 9/11. The U.N.’s top torture monitor is demanding legal action, almost certainly as a prelude to calling for action by an international tribunal — such as the ICC — if the Justice Department fails to indict. Meantime, law-enforcement authorities in Spain and elsewhere are weighing charges against the same U.S. officials, spurred on by the CCR and human-rights groups that now have friends in high American places. In foreign and international courts, the terrorist-friendly legal standards preferred by Europe and the U.N. would make convictions easier to obtain and civil suits easier to win.

Obama and Holder were principal advocates for a “reckoning” against Bush officials during the 2008 campaign. They realize, though, that their administration would be mortally wounded if Justice were actually to file formal charges — this week’s announcement of an investigation against the CIA provoked howls, but that’s nothing compared to the public reaction indictments would cause. Nevertheless, Obama and Holder are under intense pressure from the hard Left, to which they made reckless promises, and from the international community they embrace.

The way out of this dilemma is clear. Though it won’t file indictments against the CIA agents and Bush officials it is probing, the Justice Department will continue conducting investigations and releasing reports containing new disclosures of information. The churn of new disclosures will be used by lawyers for the detainees to continue pressing the U.N. and the Europeans to file charges. The European nations and/or international tribunals will make formal requests to the Obama administration to have the Justice Department assist them in securing evidence. Holder will piously announce that the “rule of law” requires him to cooperate with these “lawful requests” from “appropriately created courts.” Finally, the international and/or foreign courts will file criminal charges against American officials.

Foreign charges would result in the issuance of international arrest warrants. They won’t be executed in the United States — even this administration is probably not brazen enough to try that. But the warrants will go out to police agencies all over the world. If the indicted American officials want to travel outside the U.S., they will need to worry about the possibility of arrest, detention, and transfer to third countries for prosecution. Have a look at this 2007 interview of CCR president Michael Ratner. See how he brags that his European gambit is “making the world smaller” for Rumsfeld — creating a hostile legal climate in which a former U.S. defense secretary may have to avoid, for instance, attending conferences in NATO countries.

The Left will get its reckoning. Obama and Holder will be able to take credit with their supporters for making it happen. But because the administration’s allies in the antiwar bar and the international Left will do the dirty work of getting charges filed, the American media will help Obama avoid domestic political accountability. Meanwhile, Americans who sought to protect our nation from barbarians will be harassed and framed as war criminals. And protecting the United States will have become an actionable violation of international law.

I’m betting that’s the plan.

— National Review’s Andrew C. McCarthy is a senior fellow at the National Review Institute and the author of Willful Blindness: A Memoir of the Jihad (Encounter Books, 2008).

The Myth: The International Small Arms Control Standards (ISACS) is not about banning guns, but about making them safer, say Hillary Clinton, NYC mayor Michael Bloomberg, George Soros and other known gun banners.

The Facts: ISACS is composed of a bunch of governments such as Iraq and Colombia, among others, organizations such as the Canadian Coalition for Gun Control, the World Health Organization and others. See here for a full list.

But NRA’s Chris Cox, Wayne LaPierre, former United Nations Ambassador John Bolton and scores of evidence say otherwise. They say ISACS was created to use the U.N. as a means to sidestep the U.S. Constitution to lessen or ban small arm ownership in the U.S., under the guise of “firearm safety.”

What Gun Owning Americans Want to Know: Who’s telling the truth?

Despite the NRA’s 100-plus year track-record of being the gold standard in small arms safety training (it trains about a million people each year in firearm use and safety, including law enforcement personnel) it wasn't welcomed to the ISACS meeting. So just taking NRA’s word on it isn’t enough.

But the neutral Sporting Arms and Ammunition Manufacturers Institute (SAAMI) was invited to take part, because it was told that ISACS’ goal was to review and adopt international standards of safety. After all, SAAMI sets the safety standards for firearm and ammo manufacturing in this country, which in turn is very influential all over the world.

Any time you fire a gun, it is due to SAAMI’s tireless, technical research that assures you the gun or ammo is not loaded to hyper-pressures, and the gun is made to tested technical specifications so it will not literally blow up in your face. Any time a new gun or ammo manufacturer wishes to send a new product to market, it must pass SAAMI’s stringent protocols. If it is made elsewhere and is to be imported here, it must first pass SAAMI’s rigorous specs, so obviously not all gun and ammo manufacturers love SAAMI. They work with SAAMI because they must. Since 1926 SAMMI has been keeping them honest, and consumers safe.

So what does SAAMI say about ISACS? A press release issued by SAAMI is telling, and since SAAMI is neutral and has a pristine record of promoting gun safety and nothing else, I’ll point to it as plausible evidence.

The Proof: The following release was taken verbatim from SAAMI’s website days after it withdrew on March 21, 2012:

Quote:SAAMI Withdraws Its Name from Tainted U.N. Program

The Sporting Arms and Ammunition Manufacturers' Institute (SAAMI), a registered United Nations non-governmental organization (NGO) with roster status, has taken the regrettable but necessary step of withdrawing any reference of SAAMI association from the U.N. agency project to create "International Small Arms Control Standards (ISACS)."

The goal of ISACS, as stated on the U.N. website is "To develop internationally accepted and validated standards that provide clear and comprehensive guidance to practitioners and policy-makers on small arms and light weapons control." SAAMI, being an accredited standards-setting organization, welcomed the opportunity to be part of a standards-setting process which requires rigorous adherence to facts.

"We saw the ISACS as a way to cut through the politics and rhetoric of this issue and get down to core actions that will reduce violence," says Rick Patterson, Managing Director of SAAMI. "Regrettably, the process has been tainted, expert input has been ignored, and the resulting standards represent nothing more than the opinions of the authors—most of whom are affiliated with NGO's supporting gun control." Because the U.N. has ignored contrary facts and opinions, and quelled debate, the U.N. has done itself—and everyone associated with ISACS—a disservice. They have negatively affected the credibility of all parties involved. For these reasons, SAAMI simply cannot allow its reputation for professionalism, integrity and factual expertise to be associated with the ISACS program.

I have realized that we have forgotten about this thread dedicated to UN SATT and have had a number of quite relevant posts on the Gun Rights thread, so in the interest of thread coherency I have pasted all of them into this one post here. If you have any questions about who is saying what please refer to the posts of the Gun Rights thread in the days preceding this posts.

Please remember to use this thread for this subject from here forward.

BD, is he right in what he says about the legal force of a treaty viz our Constitutional rights?

====================

There is a great deal in that 3 minute video.

He says that President Obama could backdoor the small arms ban without congressional approval. He then, correctly, notes that a treaty must be passed by the Senate. He then goes on to say that this could happen "easily with a Democratic lame duck Senate." This I find hard to believe for a few reasons. First, I think he "misunderestimates" the role of the filibuster. Second, it takes a supermajority of two thirds for the treaty to be ratified. Third, I suspect that there are Democrats who are not leaving, but are up for reelection in 2014 who might think twice about voting for the treaty. But all of that is not what you are asking about.

The answer is sort of. According to Art. VI, "This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding." So, Dick Morris seems to want to focus on the portion I bolded. However, the portion that follows is really key to the argument, and somehting I think Morris is likely overlooking. "[A]ny Thing in the Constitution to the Contrary notwirhstanding" is extremely important. It would seem, especially with the incorporation of the Second Amendment (fingers crossed for its continued recogniton), that there is protection against what Morris claims Obama is attempting. (See http://iapcar.org/?p=567 for a nice discussion.)

BD, is he right in what he says about the legal force of a treaty viz our Constitutional rights?

What is the meaning of "any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding."?

Does it mean that even if contradicted by some part of the Constitution, it still is legally valid? It seems to say that to me , , , sorry to be slow-witted here , , ,

=======================

According to the best interpretation of the Constitution, and the specific clause you are asking about, treaties do NOT supercede the Constitution.

====================

So, there is dispute about this point?

I hope I do not impose with my request, but would you flesh this out further please?

=========================

I know nothing of this website or its organization, but it does a nice job summarizing the discussion/dispute. I don't really understand the dispute (as in, it seems facially obvious to me what the Framers were doing). But, here it is:

"In spite of the clear evidence that the treaty power was intended to be limited, promoters of big government in our century have attacked our constitutional protections through a deliberate misinterpretation of Article VI. They read it as "Treaties...shall be the supreme Law of the Land...any Thing in the Constitution...to the Contrary notwithstanding." They claim that the mention of a Constitution refers to the US Constitution, when the grammar in this clause and usage elsewhere in the document clearly shows that it is referring to the "Constitution or Laws of any State." In other words, while treaties are to take precedence over state laws and constitutions, the would-be tyrants assume that they take precedence over our federal Constitution."

As I said, I really just get the feeling that Dick Morris is trying to sell his book.

=============================

Thank you BD.

I note the mention of Harold Koh, now at Hillary's elbow in some Int'l Law post at State, in NPR piece you posted, upset at the logic of the SCOTUS decision. He is well positioned (and will be well supported by SecState Clinton in these efforts) to negotiate something really cute in the language that will seek to provide a basis for the criteria mentioned in , , , I see the piece does not name the case-- any chance you could find us the case and its citation BD?

This concerns me:

"The court said the president, acting on his own, cannot make a treaty binding on the states.

"The Supreme Court ruled that they are binding only if the treaty explicitly says so or if there is legislation to make that clear. For all of American history, many treaties have been deemed to be what is called "self-executing," meaning that their provisions are automatically binding. But not all treaties fall into this category. The Supreme Court's ruling set a bright line for which treaties are self-executing — namely, those that explicitly say so or have accompanying legislation that says so."

So, the President and the Senate can override the Constitution if the President and a majority of the Senate and House pass supporting legislation? Doesn't this bypass the defined procedures for modifying the C.?

"If I remember correctly, the holding of Medellin really focuses on whether or not there is a presumption of self-execution for treaties. The court found that there is a presumption that treaties are not self-executing unless the treaty itself or the Senate makes clear that the treaty is self-executing.

"The more on-point case for treaties that conflict with state laws is Missouri v. Holland, where the court found that treaties trump all state laws and constitutions through the supremacy clause. However, a treaty cannot conflict with the U.S. Constitution. There is still some question about whether the federal government can accomplish through treaty what it does not have the power to do in Art. I-II of the Constitution.

"As it currently stands, the Second Amendment provides a minimum floor for a right to arms, states cannot provide lesser rights to their citizens. There is no upper limit, and many states choose to provide their citizens with a broader right to arms than guaranteed by the Second Amendment. A treaty could theoretically also make the Second Amendment the upper limit by restricting the right to only what is protected in the Constitution."

Soros Promotes UN Control Over Gun Ownership Written by Joe Wolverton, II

George Soros is financing the fight to give the United Nations control of your guns.Through his Media Matters organization, Soros is dumping pro-UN gun control propaganda into the mainstream media to coincide with the United Nations Conference on the Arms Trade Treaty being held in New York July 2–27.In a blog post published on July 3, Timothy Johnson of Media Matters describes the notion that the United Nations would ever try to take away the right of Americans to keep and bear arms “laughable.”Johnson goes on to promote the passage of the UN’s Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) as a means of “curtailing the illicit arms trade” and thus cracking down on those who use these weapons to deny others their “human rights.”The blog post assures citizens concerned about the potential eradication of the rights guaranteed in the Second Amendment to the Constitution that they have nothing to fear from the UN’s gun control treaty.Top officials from the United Nations, the United States, and other high profile supporters have repeatedly and clearly said that the treaty does not aim to restrict anyone's "freedom to own" a gun. Indeed, the UN General Assembly's resolution on the treaty makes clear that countries will "exclusively" maintain the right within their borders to "regulate internal transfers of arms and national ownership, including through national constitutional protections on private ownerships."Constitutionalists will instantly notice a couple of red flags raised by Media Matters’ word choice.First, there need be no quotation marks around the phrase freedom to own a gun. Americans should enjoy the unqualified right to bear arms and it is not some antiquated idea or some unicorn-like mythical creature that requires special punctuational treatment. Americans are well aware that an unarmed citizenry is easier to subdue and will rightly resist all efforts to abridge that right.Second, the citizens of the United States do not need the permission of the United Nations to maintain the “exclusive” right to own a gun. This right, as with all others protected by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, comes from God, not man, and may be neither given nor taken away by any government.Undaunted, however, Soros will continue to use his mouthpieces to promote the globalist agenda, including the incremental dismantling of the U.S. Constitution and the sovereignty it protects.The current draft of the ATT mandates that the governments of member states petition the United Nations for approval of any contract to sell weapons to any nation where there exists a “substantial risk of a serious violation” of human rights.While the end of reducing the abuse of human rights is laudable, the means to achieve that cannot lawfully include the requirement that the Congress of the United States ask for permission from the UN overlords before it passes a law, including one authorizing the sale of arms to another country. That is a direct assault on American legislative sovereignty, and an indirect attack on the sovereignty of the American people who elect the members of Congress who vote on such measures.In the text of the ATT, the United Nations specifically calls for the passage of a legally binding instrument that will impose international standards for the ownership, trade, and transfer of weapons.In another section the ATT includes “controls on a comprehensive list of weaponry, including small arms and light weapons.” Predictably, all these controls are couched comfortably in talk of “human rights” and ending senseless killings by rogue regimes.In order to avoid being labeled a “human rights abuser,” the United States (along with all member states) is ordered by the UN to comply with the ATT. To compel this compliance, the ATT empowers the UN to force Congress to:• Enact internationally agreed licensing requirements for Americans• Confiscate and destroy unauthorized firearms of Americans while allowing the U.S. government to keep theirs• Ban the trade, sale, and private ownership of semi-automatic guns• Create and mandate an international registry to organize an encompassing gun confiscation in AmericaOn this point, in 2011, the UN’s General Assembly declared “that disarmament, arms control and non-proliferation are essential.” In other words, if world peace, the protection of human rights, and the disarming of violent regimes could be achieved through the confiscation of personal firearms, then so be it.Make no mistake, however, Soros and his fellow globalist gun controllers don’t have in mind (at least at first) to march blue-helmeted UN soldiers into the homes of Americans with orders to seize their guns and ammunition. Rather, through the passage of binding international treaties and UN resolutions, they will force the national governments of the world to do the dirty work for them.Sadly, officials of our own federal government, including President Obama, are pushing Congress to sign off on this treaty.Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has announced that the Obama administration is working with the UN to lean on Congress to consent to the ATT.Clinton has pushed the treaty as an "opportunity to promote the same high standards for the entire international community that the United States and other responsible arms exporters already have in place to ensure that weaponry is transferred for legitimate purposes."There is little doubt that the scope of those “legitimate purposes” will be determined by Soros, Clinton, Obama, and the rest of the globalist gang who have much to fear from an armed and educated citizenry.For now, the resistance to ratification of such a treaty is strong in the United States. Last July Senator Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) and 44 other senators sent a letter to President Obama and Secretary Clinton encouraging them to stop pushing for passage of UN gun control treaties. In the letter, Moran wrote:Our country’s sovereignty and the Second Amendment rights of American citizens must not be infringed upon by the United Nations. Today, the Senate sends a powerful message to the Obama Administration: an Arms Trade Treaty that does not protect ownership of civilian firearms will fail in the Senate. Our firearm freedoms are not negotiable.George Soros, through his Media Matters outlet, promises that “U.S. gun owners have nothing to fear” from the ATT or from similar UN agreements to restrict the manufacture, transfer, and possession of firearms. The globalists’ only goal, they maintain, is “the maintenance of international peace and security.”For those whose fears are assuaged by such gentle words, we offer this competing comment from Benjamin Franklin written in a letter penned in 1755: “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”

D-Day For Gun ControlBy DICK MORRISPublished on TheHill.com on July 10, 2012

Without much fanfare and with as little publicity as possible, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will go to New York City to sign the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT), now in the final stages of negotiation at the U.N. The treaty marks the beginning of an international crusade to impose gun controls on the United States and repeal our Second Amendment rights.

The ATT is nominally geared toward the purpose of stopping international arms sales to gangs, criminals and violent groups. But, as is so often the case with U.N. treaties, this is merely a convenient facade behind which to conceal the ATT's true intent: to force gun control on the United States.

Secretary Clinton will doubtless succeed in inserting language into the treaty asserting that it in no way is meant to restrict our right to bear arms. But even this language will be meaningless in the face of the overall construct set up by the treaty.

The ATT is to be administered by an International Support Unit (ISU), which will ensure that "parties [to the treaty] take all necessary measures to control brokering activities taking place within [their] territories ... to prevent the diversion of exported arms to the illicit market or to unintended end users."

The ISU will determine whether nations are in compliance with this requirement and will move to make sure that they do, indeed, take "all necessary measures." This requirement will inexorably lead to gun registration, restrictions on ownership and, eventually, even outright bans on firearms.

Former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton said it best: "After the treaty is approved and comes into force, you will find out that it has this implication or that implication and that it requires Congress to adopt legislation to restrict the ownership of firearms."

Bolton explains that "the administration knows that it cannot obtain this kind of legislation in purely a domestic context. They will use an international agreement to get domestically what they couldn't get otherwise."

The treaty makes no sense otherwise, except as a circuitous vehicle to achieve gun control in the United States. The vast majority of all small arms and light arms exports (the ostensible focus of the treaty) are from sales by the governments of the United States, Russia, China, Germany and Israel. Individual or corporate arms trafficking is a distinct minority. But it is to absorb the brunt of the treaty's regulations.

Insofar as the treaty restricts governmental action, it bars governments from arming "illicit" groups in other nations. This provision could well be interpreted to ban U.S. arms sales to Iranian or Syrian dissidents. It could even be used by China to stop us from selling arms to Taiwan, since the U.N. does not recognize Taiwan as a nation, but rather an entity occupying territory that should belong to China.

And let's not forget how well the United States has done in reducing murders and other crimes despite the absence of comprehensive gun controls and bans. In 1993, there were 24,350 homicides in the United States. Last year, there were 13,576 (despite a growth of 60 million in the population). Only 9,000 of these murders involved a firearm. (Less than one-third of the highway deaths each year in the country.)

Obama has left gun control off his legislative agenda so far. Now his strategy becomes apparent: Use international treaties to achieve it.

And bear in mind that under the Supremacy Clause of our Constitution, we would be obliged to enforce the ATT despite the Second Amendment. International treaties have the force of constitutional law in the United States.

If it is ratified during the lame-duck session of the Senate this year, then nothing can ever change it. Goodbye, Second Amendment.

Right now we need 34 courageous Republican senators to step up and demand that Hillary not sign the treaty, and indicate their intention to vote against its ratification if it is submitted. Only such an action can stop this treachery in its tracks.

Click Here to sign the petition to stop the US from signing the Arms Trade Treaty!

The fate of our Second Amendment rests in the hands of United Nations' do-gooders and dictators.

They’re gathering in New York City to iron out the final details of the now infamous U.N. "Small Arms Treaty."

And I promise you will be reeling as you try to wrap your head around their latest move.

Sources have revealed that the famously corrupt anti-gun diplomats at the U.N. have given IRAN a key seat at the negotiations for the global arms treaty.

The same Iran that just days ago was exposed supplying arms to the brutal Assad regime in civil war-torn Syria. The same Iran that beats peaceful protestors in the streets and denies firearms to most of its citizens.

Do you want to know who else has a seat at the table to carve-up your gun rights?

Egypt, China, Belarus and Nigeria among others.

But I have even more disturbing news.

The greatest threat to our gun rights doesn’t come from the sands of the Middle East . . .

. . . It comes from ivory tower diplomats in nations like Japan, Mexico and Australia.

These countries are on record at the U.N. saying, “. . . small arms and light weapons [read: the guns in YOUR gun case] are truly weapons of mass destruction.”

These anti-gun diplomats want to impose their gun control schemes on freedom-loving Americans.

Japan brags, “We strictly punish and control the possession and use of small arms by civilians. . .”

Our "friends" down under in Australia love to point out, “. . . Firearm owners in Australia must also demonstrate a genuine reason for [gun] ownership.”

Insiders have pointed out that Australia has picked up the tab for 50 delegates from 35 less-developed nations to attend the meeting.

These poor delegates receive a free month-long vacation to New York City, and we’re to believe they’re not going to back their gun-grabbing patrons with a "yes vote" on the "Small Arms Treaty?"

Even far left-wing "Non-Governmental Organizations" have been known to staff smaller nations at the U.N. or take their delegate seats entirely.

Closer to home, Mexico is spear-heading an effort at the U.N. to target the ownership and sale of civilian firearms in the United States.

The Delegation of Mexico has said, "This treaty must cover all type of conventional weapons, without differentiation on its supposed use."

Just as we warned, Mexico is using the Obama administration's Fast and Furious debacle as their justification to take your Second Amendment rights.

What this all boils down to is a large majority of U.N. diplomats are poised to push a so-called "Small Arms Treaty" in the coming weeks that is a direct attack on your gun rights.

That’s why for almost seven years the National Association for Gun Rights has been leading the opposition to the U.N. "Small Arms Treaty."

As we face the prospect that Hillary Clinton will sign the Arms Trade Treaty, establishing first-ever UN gun controls, those of us who believe in the Second Amendment need to gear up for a tough battle this fall.

But there is a good prospect of victory.

We have to realize that once the ink is dry on Hillary's signature, there are only two ways to beat the Treaty and its threat of UN imposed gun control - take back the Senate or beat Obama.

The fact that the NRA has succeeded in getting fifty-eight Senators to sign on opposing the Treaty is irrelevant. If Harry Reid won't bring it up on the floor, it won't get a vote. And, in the absence of Senate disapproval or a renunciation by the president, the United States is bound by the Treaty under the provisions of the Vienna Convention which we have both signed and ratified.

Nor will the Second Amendment offer us any protection. The Supremacy Clause in our own Constitution provides that treaties are the "law of the land" akin to a constitutional provision.

The answer is to beat Obama and give the Republicans a majority in the Senate. Either will suffice to kill the Treaty. A Republican majority leader would certainly bring the Treaty up for a vote and it would certainly be defeated, ending its power over the U.S. and a President Romney will doubtless renounce the Treaty on taking office.

Voting for anti-gun control Democratic candidates for Senate won't work. Their leader would refuse to bring the Treaty up for a vote, regardless of how his members felt.

We know that Obama is frightened to death of the gun issue. While he said, famously, that bitter people "cling to their religion and their guns," in the 2008 election, he hasn't touched the issue since. In his avalanche of liberal proposals concerning spending, taxes, health care, labor relations, the environment, and energy, he has proposed no added gun controls.

So we need to realize that this Treaty is a declaration of war against the Second Amendment and we need to step up and battle. We have got to make gun control the issue that tips swing states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Indiana, Missouri, Iowa, and Colorado into the Republican column on Election Day. Now there is no way to save our right to bear arms other than to win the election.

Click Here to sign the petition to stop the US from signing the Arms Trade Treaty!

I’m sitting in my hotel room in New York City, just blocks away from the United Nations Plaza, studying the draft UN "Small Arms Treaty."

And it's just as I expected.

After you strip away all of the flowery language of this treaty, it comes down to a completely open-ended attempt to put United Nations bureaucrats in charge of firearms policy worldwide, usurping the authority of countries to set their own policies.

If you want to slog through the draft language, you can see it by clicking here.

What you’ll notice is the entire scope of this treaty is covered in elegant dancing, attempting to say things without actually saying them.

But UN insiders -- who’ve been involved in this process for years -- say you can understand a lot more about the intentions of this treaty by reading between the lines, and by noticing the ambiguous mentioning of "control".

Some of the apologists will point to a paragraph in the preamble, claiming that it covers the "lawful private ownership" of firearms for recreational and sporting activities.

If you’ve been around the gun control debate for as long as I have -- and I just started my 20th year as a professional "gun lobbyist" -- you know what politicians mean when they talk about "recreational and sporting" firearms.

Sporting firearms are shotguns and bolt action rifles. They don’t want to anger hunters, but instead have their eye set on what our founding fathers called "liberty’s teeth."

If you doubt that, just look at the statue in the main plaza of the UN.

It’s not a tank’s main gun that’s tied in a knot.

It’s a uniquely American revolver -- closely resembling a Smith & Wesson, if not an exact copy.

In other words, a defensive handgun. An icon of American independence.

But that’s the attitude down here: UN bureaucrats scoff at American freedoms, and the anti-gun organizations gleefully point to mass murders as their proof that America’s firearms freedoms are far too lax.

Of course, virtually all of these UN bureaucrats come from countries where only government agents have firearms -- and where unarmed civilians are subjects.

The goal is simple: get the camel’s nose under the tent. Get international influence, control and authority into firearms policy...

...then ban firearms wholesale, for all but government agents.

The worst -- and most surprising, last minute -- provision of this treaty is the ability to change it, at any time in the future.

According to Article 20 of the draft, this treaty can be amended by a vote of the signers of the treaty... any time in the future, with amendments proposed by any country!

That means that if the U.S. Senate ratifies this current treaty but opposes future changes, it is still bound by the future changes.

This is the perfect end-run around the U.S. Senate ratification of unpalatable gun controls.

All they need to do is amend the Small Arms Treaty after a very generic version has been ratified, and there’s no need to ratify it again, according to the treaty's language for amendments.

Just this morning I was interviewed by Fox News, and my message was clear: we will fight against this treaty in the U.S. Senate.

We will fight against ratification of this treaty with everything at our disposal.

After the camera’s lights turned off and we went off-air, the reporter leaned in close and said "but can you beat it?"

My response: "With enough activists, yes, we can."

That's where you come in.

I need your help to reach my goal of raising $250,000 by tomorrow, July 27th, when the UN is set to announce the treaty to the public?

Will you chip in just $10 or $20 today?

For Freedom,

Dudley BrownExecutive Vice President P.S. The United Nations' "Arms Trade Treaty" conference is in full swing in New York City.

The number-one item on the gun-grabbers' agenda is enacting GLOBAL gun registration -- setting the stage for international firearm confiscation.

If you want to see the draft treaty yourself, click here.

After you see the treaty, will you help me reach my goal of raising $250,000 by tomorrow July 27th the day the conference plans to propose the treaty?

With your contribution, I can spring into action IMMEDIATELY and launch the plan we've been developing for years.

So please chip in just $10 or $20 TODAY!

________________________________________The National Association for Gun Rights is a nonprofit, nonpartisan, single-purpose citizens' organization dedicated to preserving and protecting the Constitutionally protected right-to-keep-and-bear-arms through an aggressive program designed to mobilize public opposition to anti-gun legislation. The National Association for Gun Rights' mailing address is P.O. 7002, Fredericksburg, VA 22404. They can be contacted toll-free at 1-877-405-4570. Its web address is www.NationalGunRights.org/

The United Nations Small Arms Treaty passed in its second session. The Media was silent over its passage.

According to the UN’s press release,

Concluding its two-week session today, the second United Nations conference to review the 2001 Programme of Action on trafficking in small arms and light weapons adopted a consensus outcome document that highlighted the international community’s renewed commitment to preventing, combating and eradicating the illicit trade.

The document’s adoption represented a major achievement for delegations, who had failed to agree on a final outcome at the first review conference, held in 2006. “We accomplished something great today,” said U. Joy Ogwu ( Nigeria), President of the Conference, formally known as the United Nations Conference to Review Progress Made in the Implementation of the Programme of Action to Prevent, Combat and Eradicate the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects.

According to the text, Member States renewed their pledge to rid the world of the scourge brought upon it by the illicit manufacture, transfer and circulation of small arms and light weapons, and their excessive accumulation and uncontrolled spread in many parts of the world. They also committed to mobilizing the necessary political will and resources to implement the Programme of Action and the International Tracing Instrument, with the aim of achieving clear and tangible results over the next six years, through 2018.

Further by the text, States emphasized that the illicit trade in small arms and light weapons continued to sustain conflicts, exacerbate armed violence, undermine respect for international humanitarian law and international human rights law, aid terrorism and illegal armed groups, and facilitate increasing levels of transnational organized crime, as well as trafficking in humans, drugs and certain natural resources.

Ahhh yes, the cries of terrorism and drugs and boogey men for the passage of the treaty. This comes from member nations who knowingly promote these kinds of things. Even the United States is now in the midst of a scandal involving gunwalking, known as Fast and Furious, and at least one man arrested has come forward and said that Fast and Furious was all about arming drug cartels in Mexico, never about tracking them.

All countries signed the declaration and further documentation can be found here.

According to the program of action:

“8. Reaffirming our respect for and commitment to international law and the purposes and principles enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations, including the sovereign equality of States, territorial integrity, the peaceful resolution of international disputes, non-intervention and non-interference in the internal affairs of States, “. Non-intervention and non-interference? How about Syria? NATO is part of the United Nations.

“9. Reaffirming the inherent right to individual or collective self-defence in accordance with Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations,”. Collective means the state, in-contrary to our Bill of Rights guaranteed by our government, but ultimately granted by our Creator.

“10. Reaffirming also the right of each State to manufacture, import and retain small arms and light weapons for its self-defence and security needs, as well as for its capacity to participate in peacekeeping operations in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations, “. This is just another statement dealing with a ‘collective right’, not an individual right. The ATF, FBI, Homeland Security, along with all the ‘alphabet’ agencies of the federal and state governments are immune and the tyranny they will accomplish when this treaty is fully implemented staggers the mind.

“11. Reaffirming the right of self-determination of all peoples, taking into account the particular situation of peoples under colonial or other forms of alien domination or foreign occupation, and recognizing the right of peoples to take legitimate action in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations to realize their inalienable right of self-determination. This shall not be construed as authorizing or encouraging any action that would dismember or impair, totally or in part, the territorial integrity or political unity of sovereign and independent States conducting themselves in compliance with the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples,” This section was examined previously. It is important to point out that the West Bank and Gaza are not recognized as an ‘sovereign and independent States’, therefore they are up for grabs.

Of course this will be enforced by the UN’s blue helmets, or International Assistance.

Keys To Liberty reported,

It is interesting to note, the “delegations agreed to strengthen the action programme’s implementation at the national, regional and global levels over the period 2012-2018. On follow-up measures, they decided to hold a one-week biennial meeting of States in 2014 and 2016, and a one-week open-ended meeting of governmental experts in 2015 to consider the Programme of Action’s full and effective implementation”. (Underline Emphasis is the author’s) Over the next few years ‘something’ is needed to fully implement this treaty by 2018. Each two years they will meet to see how the treaty has been complied with. This means new statutes in place at the federal level, further restricting the right to keep and bear arms. An assault weapons ban, large capacity magazine ban and stripper clips ban are just around the corner. In the future this will probably begin with more ‘false flag’ operations, stemming, and leading to our own government behind them. More Aurora, Colorado’s, more Sikh Temple type massacres around the country and maybe even a Oklahoma City bombing type event.

Right about now you are probably thinking, so what? As long as the Senate doesn’t ratify all if well. Ask yourself if you are familiar with the United Nation’s Agenda 21. The Senate didn’t ratify that. Instead Bill Clinton basically passed it by executive order. Mike Opelka, at the Blaze writes:

Agenda 21 is a two-decade old, grand plan for global ’Sustainable Development,’ brought to you from the United Nations. George H.W. Bush (and 177 other world leaders) agreed to it back in 1992, and in 1995, Bill Clinton signed Executive Order #12858, creating a Presidential Council on ‘Sustainable Development.’ This effectively pushed the UN plan into America’s large, churning government machine without the need for any review or discussion by Congress or the American people.

So it is perfectly feasible that this will be implemented over a period of years, but very short years.

From The Trenches reports on legislation that is currently before Congress to put the squeeze on those of us wishing to maintain our Second Amendment rights.

Enter H.R. 6241 and S. 3458, identical bills in both houses that are currently in committee; titled Stop Online Ammunition Sales Act of 2012 .When passed, in person sales of ammunition will be required, as well as registration of amounts exceeding 1,000 rounds, or 1,000 rounds over a week period. The idea behind this legislation is to make you pay more in the future for ammunition and to register sales. It will also limit your selection to what ever is available at a local store.Another bill before Congress, sitting in committee is Gun Show Loophole Closing Act of 2011. It is H.R. 591, in the House and S.35 in the Senate. It would permanently ban Gun Shows if passed.

Here is another one held up in committee, Fix Gun Checks Act of 2011.This one penalized states that don’t report enough violators to the National Instant Criminal Background Checks. In the Senate it is S. 436.

Doing a search for ‘assault weapons’ this Bill came up, titled Child Gun Safety And Gun Access Prevention Act Of 2011. This one raises the age of ‘Juvenile’ to ‘under 21′ with penalties for transfer of guns, ammunition, high capacity clips to anyone under 21 who might commit a crime. This one is bound to pass, because of the New Speak in the title. The socialists will love it.

By the way, what has been covered during the past week? Oh that’s right, some anti-islamic film, nude pictures of Dutchess Kate and a few political gaffes.

BD: Your thoughts on this please.=====================================

UN Gun Control Is Back!By DICK MORRISPublished on DickMorris.com on October 23, 2012

Dear Friend,Click Here To Sign The Petition To Stop The Arms Trade Treaty!

After a wave of outrage stopped President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton from signing the proposed UN Gun Control Treaty (called the UN Arms Trade Treaty), the treaty advocates are back with a devilish new strategy! As we warned in Here Come the Black Helicopters: UN Global Governance and the Loss of Freedom, the gun control advocates won't stop trying to impose gun controls on the United States through an international treaty to override the Second Amendment.

The plan was to sign the treaty on July 27th in New York, but you sent 700,000 emails through our web site (www.DickMorris.com) alone to the Senate and that led 51 Senators to urge Hillary not to sign. She backed off and the negotiations ended.

Now advocates of the Treaty, as we predicted, are back and have introduced a resolution in the UN General Assembly calling for the resumption of negotiations and outlining a new procedure to get it passed even if the US objects.

Under their plan -- likely to be approved later this month by the General Assembly -- the negotiators are not going to seek consensus (read: U.S. approval) but will write the Treaty as they please and introduce it to the General Assembly for approval. If two-thirds of the Assembly vote for the treaty (a foregone conclusion), then it will be submitted to the nations of the world for signature and ratification. Nobody will be able to change the Treaty, they have the option of signing or not.

When sixty nations have signed, the Treaty will take effect and be binding on those who have signed and ratified it.

Here's the rest of the plan: After the election is over, Obama and Hillary will probably sign the Treaty. They then won't submit it for ratification since, under the Vienna Convention, it takes effect automatically on their signature even without Senate ratification. That means that the Treaty takes full effect unless one of two things happen:

(a) Either the Senate votes to kill the Treaty, or

(b) The president or a future president renounces it

The first option won't happen. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid won't permit the Treaty to come up for a vote in the lame duck Senate session that begins after Election Day. He knows it would lose. So, as long as Obama is president and he doesn't renounce the Treaty, it will take effect without Senate action.

We need to mobilize to stop this end run around our Constitution. Once the Arms Trade Treaty is signed by Obama, it will open the door to international gun controls imposed by the Geneva-based enforcers of the Treaty.

(Nominally, the Treaty bars the exportation of small arms by private individuals or companies to foreign countries. But, in its enforcement, it obliges signatory countries to require registration of the small arms in their citizens' possession. And, if that fails to stop the export of small arms, it empowers the global body to take further steps, likely to include prohibition and confiscation.

Please sign this petition to stop the Arms Trade Treaty. We succeeded before in forcing a postponement, now let's stop the Treaty and kill it entirely.

To do this, please send this email all over the place so it goes viral and we get millions of emails to deluge the Senate, the President, Hillary, and the UN.

That didn’t take long. Less than a day after President Obama’s re-election, theadministration breathed new life into the United Nations‘ previously comatose treatyregulating guns.

Last July, the U.N. General Assembly began formal discussion of the Arms TradeTreaty, which seeks to establish “common international standards for the import,export and transfer of conventional arms.” Talks on the controversial agreement wereput on indefinite hiatus after the United States requested an extension to the timeallotted to negotiate the agreement. Gun rights supporters blasted the treaty as itinched toward approval, and many suspected U.S. procedural maneuvers were intendedto delay the treaty so it wouldn’t become a topic of discussion during the election.It appears these suspicions were correct since “indefinite” turned out to mean untilhours after Mr. Obama was re-elected.

The administration line is that the treaty applies only to firearms exports andposes no threat to domestic gun owners. “We seek a treaty that contributes tointernational security by fighting illicit arms trafficking and proliferation,protects the sovereign right of states to conduct legitimate arms trade, and meetsthe concerns that we have been articulating throughout,” an administration officialsaid. “We will not accept any treaty that infringes on the constitutional rights ofour citizens to bear arms.”

It is hard to take the White House response seriously. The treaty instructscountries to “take the necessary legislative and administrative measures, to adapt,as necessary, national laws and regulations to implement the obligations of thistreaty.” The agreement’s language is so broad, vague and poorly defined it could bestretched in a variety of ways that would pose a threat to the Second Amendment.Treaty backers also want to insert provisions forcing ratifying states to promote avariety of fashionable left-wing causes including “sustainable development,” eventhough they have nothing to do with the arms trade.

Though the treaty is supposed to be about “gun exports,” its provisions can still beapplied domestically. Activist judges adjudicating cases arising under the treatyand enabling legislation could see to that. The definition of international commercecould follow the same expansive logic liberal courts have used to redefine“interstate commerce.” Anything that indirectly or incidentally affects the trade inarms would fall under its control.

A ratified treaty, with constitutional authority, could be interpreted in a way thatapplies to any imported weapon or round of ammunition, those made with foreigncomponents, those containing imported materials, those that might some day beexported, and those capable of being exported. If it affects the overall armsmarket, it could be said to be part of “international” trade, even if the item neverleaves our shores. In practice this logic would give the government free rein toregulate all weapons, foreign and domestic. With the election out of the way, theWhite House can move swiftly to get the treaty through the U.N. General Assembly andup to the Senate by the summer of 2013. Elections have consequences.

NSSF Objects to U.S. Government Abandoning Position that U.N. Treaty Must be based on International “Consensus”

March 29, 2013By nssfnewsNo Comments

The National Shooting Sports Foundation today strongly objected to the last-minute reversal on the U.S. government position regarding the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty. In the closing hours of negotiations on Thursday, March 28, the government abandoned its previous insistence that the treaty be approved only through achieving “consensus” of all the member states. Requiring consensus had been the United States position going back to earlier administrations.

At the end of the session, a U.S. government spokesperson told reporters “It’s important to the United States and the defense of our interests to insist on consensus. But every state in this process has always been conscious of the fact that if consensus is not reached in this process, that there are other ways to adopt this treaty, including via a vote of the General Assembly.” The spokesperson went on to say that the United States would vote “yes” on the treaty in the General Assembly, regardless of the positions of other member states. By abandoning the requirement for consensus the United States is assuring passage of the treaty by the United Nations.

“This abrupt about-face on the long-standing United States requirement for ‘consensus’ illustrates that the Obama Administration wants a sweeping U.N. arms control treaty,” said Lawrence Keane, NSSF senior vice president and general counsel. “We are troubled by the timing of the Obama Administration’s decision to abandon consensus on the eve of the Senate debate on pending gun-control measures. The United Nations treaty would have a broad impact on the U.S. firearms industry and its base of consumers in the U.S.”

Industry analysts have identified three major areas of concern with the treaty text. The treaty clearly covers trade in civilian firearms, not just military arms and equipment. It will have a major impact on the importation of firearms to the United States, which is a substantial source for the consumer market. And it will impose new regulations on the “transit” of firearms, the term defined so broadly that it would cover all everything from container ships stopping at ports to individuals who are traveling internationally with a single firearm for hunting or other sporting purposes.

“We hope that the Members of the U.S. Senate are closely watching the White House abandon its principles and promises in the rush to ramrod this flawed treaty into effect. Not only will they later be asked to ratify this attack on our constitution and sovereignty, but they will also be lavished with new promises from the administration in its drive to push a broad gun-control agenda through the U.S. Senate when it returns from recess. They would be right to question those promises strongly,” concluded Keane.

Stop UN Gun TreatyBy DICK MORRISPublished on DickMorris.com on April 2, 2013Click Here To Sign The Petition To Stop The Arms Trade Treaty!The United Nations General Assembly has just voted to approve the text of a global regulation of small arms trade. The United States voted for the treaty, making it clear that Obama and Secretary of State Kerry will sign it and submit it to the Senate for ratification.

Oddly, the three nations most likely to violate the treaty -- Iran, Syria, and North Korea -- all voted against it and won't sign up.

But the real danger in this treaty, as we warned in our book Here Come the Black Helicopters, is that it sets up the basis for gun control in the United States. Since the U.S. accounts for about a third of all private sector small arms exports, the treaty is really aimed directly at us. (Since more than three quarters of all small arms exports are by governments not by private firms or individuals, the treaty will really do little to stop them).

The Treaty does not set out provisions with which nations must comply. Instead, it sets goals and empowers a new international regulatory body to deal with individual nations to bring about compliance. The nations who sign the treaty are obliged to stop arms transfers by private companies and citizens to terrorists, drug gangs, and other bad actors. (Precisely the same folks Holder supplied with guns in Fast and Furious).

How the nations of the world comply is up to them and up to the international regulatory body. The inevitable byproduct of this treaty is an escalating series of gun registration, controls and confiscation steps imposed by treaty without requiring the consent of the Congress.

In fact, these measures could be imposed by the U.S. courts since the treaty would be the law of the land and could be the subject of judicial intervention.

We must stop this treaty. Its passage is an obvious back door way around the likely failure of gun control legislation in the Congress. This Treaty, which only needs Senate approval, would cut the Republican House out of the deal entirely.

PLEASE SIGN THIS PETITION. If you have already signed it, please circulate it very widely so that we can bring the pressure to bear on our Senators to be the last line of defense of our constitutional liberties.Click Here To Sign The Petition To Stop The Arms Trade Treaty!

Republican senators -- joined by at least one Democrat -- ripped the international arms trade treaty approved Tuesday by the U.N. General Assembly, calling it a "non-starter" and vowing to oppose Senate ratification.

The treaty approved Tuesday was the first of its kind. The resolution was approved at the U.N. by a vote of 154 to 3 with 23 abstentions.

But in the U.S. Senate, which must ratify the treaty in order for the United States to be a party to it, opposition is much stronger.

The Senate already voted for an amendment last month to prevent the U.S. from entering into the treaty. The sentiment among conservative and moderate senators concerned the treaty represents an infringement of Second Amendment rights had not changed in light of Tuesday's U.N. vote.

"The U.N. Arms Trade Treaty that passed in the General Assembly today would require the United States to implement gun-control legislation as required by the treaty, which could supersede the laws our elected officials have already put into place," Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., said in a statement. "It's time the Obama administration recognizes it is already a non-starter, and Americans will not stand for internationalists limiting and infringing upon their Constitutional rights."

Democratic Sen. Max Baucus, of Montana, also said he could not support the treaty, claiming it doesn't do enough to "uphold the rights of Americans."

Critics of the treaty claim that, while it's aimed at combating the vast illegal weapons trade, it could end up burdening law-abiding gun owners and businesses with a new web of red tape. Inhofe also said the treaty could hurt national security efforts by preventing the U.S. from assisting allies.

What impact it will have in curbing the estimated $60 billion global arms trade remains to be seen. The landmark U.N. treaty will take effect after 50 countries ratify it, and a lot will depend on which ones ratify and which ones don't, and how stringently it is implemented.

In the U.S. Senate, it takes two-thirds of the 100 lawmakers to win ratification.

Enforcement is left up to the nations that ratify the treaty. The treaty requires these countries to cooperate on its implementation and to assist each other in investigating and prosecuting violations.

Britain and a small group of other treaty supporters sought a vote in the 193-member world body after Iran, North Korea and Syria blocked its adoption by consensus last week. The three countries voted "no" on Tuesday, while Russia and China, both major arms exporters, abstained. The United States, the world's largest arms exporter, voted in favor.

Secretary of State John Kerry welcomed the approval of "a strong, effective and implementable arms trade treaty that can strengthen global security while protecting the sovereign right of states to conduct legitimate arms trade." He stressed that the treaty applies only to international trade "and reaffirms the sovereign right of any state to regulate arms within its territory."

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said the administration was "pleased" by the outcome.

But Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott swiftly fired off a letter to Obama Tuesday urging him not to sign it. He threatened that if the treaty were eventually signed and ratified, his state would "lead the charge" to have it overturned in court "as a violation of the U.S. Constitution."

He voiced concern that the treaty "empowers a new U.N. bureaucracy focused on firearms restrictions that will be run by international bureaucrats."

Never before has there been an international treaty regulating the global arms trade. Supporters said its adoption took far too long.

Australian Ambassador Peter Woolcott, who chaired the negotiations, said the treaty will "make an important difference by reducing human suffering and saving lives."

"We owe it to those millions -- often the most vulnerable in society -- whose lives have been overshadowed by the irresponsible and illicit international trade in arms," he told the assembly just before the vote.

The treaty will not control the domestic use of weapons in any country, but it will require countries that ratify it to establish national regulations to control the transfer of conventional arms and components and to regulate arms brokers.

It covers battle tanks, armored combat vehicles, large-caliber artillery systems, combat aircraft, attack helicopters, warships, missiles and missile launchers, and small arms and light weapons. A phrase stating that the treaty covers these weapons "at a minimum" was dropped, according to diplomats, at the insistence of the United States. Supporters complained that this limited the treaty's scope.

The treaty prohibits states that ratify it from transferring conventional weapons if they violate arms embargoes or if they promote acts of genocide, crimes against humanity or war crimes. The pact also prohibits the export of conventional arms if they could be used in attacks on civilians or civilian buildings such as schools and hospitals.

In considering whether to authorize the export of arms, a country must evaluate whether the weapons would be used to violate international human rights laws or employed by terrorists or organized crime. A country must also determine whether the weapons would contribute to or undermine peace and security.

In addition, the treaty requires countries to take measures to prevent the diversion of conventional weapons to the illicit market.

Proponents of the treaty said it could make it much harder for regimes committing human rights violations to acquire arms, in conflicts such as the brutal civil war in Syria.

Gun Control at the U.N. A treaty that the worst governments will simply ignore..

President Obama is having a hard time passing a gun-control bill at home, but earlier this week the Administration signed on to a U.N. effort to control guns around the world.

On Tuesday the U.N. General Assembly voted 154-3 to approve a treaty that regulates the international arms trade. The vision behind the measure is that, with enough paperwork, weapons can be kept out of the hands of bad guys. The more likely outcome is that civilians in the worst parts of the world will find it that much harder to defend themselves.

Perhaps the best that can be said about the treaty, which still requires ratification by 50 signatories before it can come into force, are the names of the regimes that voted against it: North Korea, Iran and Syria. China and Russia, both prolific arms exporters, abstained.

As for U.S., it voted in favor after the Obama Administration secured its key "red line" that the treaty would have no impact on the Second Amendment. The final draft specifies "non-intervention in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction" of signatories.

Sadly, most of the world's constitutions contain no individual right to bear arms. Which brings us to one of the more alarming aspects of the treaty: While it affirms states' rights to self-defense, the text makes no mention of civilians' rights to defend themselves. The result is to strengthen the grip of governments on the international flow of arms.

No wonder strongmen across Africa were among the treaty's loudest cheerleaders. Take Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe: His representatives have stressed the need for "stringent import and export control systems that deal with all aspects of diversion of the arms into the hands of non-state actors." Other African leaders claim they need the treaty to check arms trafficking among terrorist and organized criminal groups.

Yet the likelihood that al Qaeda in the Maghreb or Joseph Kony's Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda are going to find themselves starved of weapons thanks to the treaty's reporting requirements is zero. What the treaty will do is commit its signatories to establish a "national control system" to monitor, track and regulate everything from tanks to gunships to small arms—and their parts.

We'll have to await figures on the expense of these bureaucracies, along with all the stories about unintended consequences, both comic and tragic. For an example of the latter, recall the arms embargo the U.N. imposed on Bosnia in 1991, which did nothing to stop the flow of arms to Serbs but deprived their Bosnian victims of any means of self defense other than U.N. peacekeepers. Among the results of that policy was the 1995 Serbian massacre of thousands of Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica.

The history of arms control has always been one of compliance by the virtuous and cheating by the wicked, and there's no reason to think this latest attempt will work out differently. The U.S. Senate would do America and the world a favor by voting this treaty down, and urging our allies to do the same.

Obama's United Nations Backdoor to Gun Control Luckily, the Constitution gives the Senate exclusive power to ratify, or block, the Arms Trade Treaty..By JOHN BOLTON AND JOHN YOO

Even before his most ambitious gun-control proposals were falling by the wayside, President Obama was turning for help to the United Nations. On April 2, the United States led 154 nations to approve the Arms Trade Treaty in the U.N. General Assembly. While much of the treaty governs the international sale of conventional weapons, its regulation of small arms would provide American gun-control advocates with a new tool for restricting rights. Yet because the Constitution requires that two-thirds of the Senate give its advice and consent to any treaty, Second Amendment supporters still have a political route to stop the administration.

Like many international schemes, this treaty has seemingly benign motives. It seeks to "eradicate the illicit trade in conventional arms and to prevent their diversion to the illicit market," where they are used in civil wars and human-rights disasters. The treaty calls for rigorous export controls on heavy conventional weapons, such as tanks, missiles, artillery, helicopters and warships.

Yet, as with many utopian devices, the treaty fails the test of enforcement. Some of the world's largest arms traffickers either voted against the agreement or abstained. The U.S., quite rightly, already has the world's most serious export controls in place, while nations such as North Korea, Syria, Iran, Russia and China will continue to traffic in arms with abandon.

But the new treaty also demands domestic regulation of "small arms and light weapons." The treaty's Article 5 requires nations to "establish and maintain a national control system," including a "national control list." Article 10 requires signatories "to regulate brokering" of conventional arms. The treaty offers no guarantee for individual rights, but instead only declares it is "mindful" of the "legitimate trade and lawful ownership" of arms for"recreational, cultural, historical, and sporting activities." Not a word about the right to possess guns for a broader individual right of self-defense.

Gun-control advocates will use these provisions to argue that the U.S. must enact measures such as a national gun registry, licenses for guns and ammunition sales, universal background checks, and even a ban of certain weapons. The treaty thus provides the Obama administration with an end-run around Congress to reach these gun-control holy grails. As the Supreme Court's Heller and McDonald cases recently declared, the Second Amendment guarantees an individual right "to keep and bear Arms" such as handguns and rifles. Congress's power to regulate interstate commerce remains broad, but the court's decisions in other cases—even last year's challenge to the Affordable Care Act—remind us that those powers are limited.

International treaties don't suffer these limits. The Constitution establishes treaties in Article II (which sets out the president's executive powers), rather than in Article I (which defines the legislature's authority)—so treaties therefore aren't textually subject to the limits on Congress's power. Treaties still receive the force of law under the Supremacy Clause, which declares that "This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land."

Some have argued over the years that this difference in language between laws and treaties allows the latter to sweep more broadly than the former. In Missouri v. Holland (1920), Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes followed this logic to declare that no "invisible radiation from the general terms of the Tenth Amendment" applies to the Treaty Power. Congress could win greater favor from the courts for gun-control measures, or President Obama could issue executive orders for a gun registry and background checks, on the claim that he is implementing the treaty.

Missouri read the treaty power broadly under the Supremacy Clause at a time when the courts gave Congress's powers short shrift, but the decision was fundamentally mistaken. The Supremacy Clause referred to treaties "made under the Authority of the United States" not to expand their scope—but to grandfather in existing agreements such as the Peace Treaty with Great Britain. In Reid v. Covert (1957), a plurality of justices agreed that the treaty power could not undermine the Bill of Rights, rightly trying to close the huge loophole that Missouri had erroneously opened.

The attempt to advance gun control through the Arms Trade Treaty might surprise average Americans, but not liberals, who have been long frustrated by the Constitution's limits on government. Gun-control statutes, like any others, have to survive both the House and the Senate, then win presidential approval. It is far easier to advance an agenda through treaties, unwritten international law and even "norms" delivered by an amorphous "international community."

Opponents of capital punishment have used treaties to press the Supreme Court to stop the death penalty in Texas. Women's rights groups advocate an international convention that would achieve the goals of the failed Equal Rights Amendment. And supporters of bans on "hate speech" invoke international norms to defeat First Amendment objections. There also is an international legal doctrine that during the period when a country has signed but not yet ratified a treaty, it must take no measures that defeat the treaty's object and purposes. Under some liberal theories, this would allow the president to put some measures of the new arms treaty into effect by executive order.

Fortunately the Framers required that the president submit all significant international agreements to the Senate, which must consent to the treaty with the same supermajority needed to send a constitutional amendment to the states or to override an executive veto.

The Senate should block this latest effort to evade the Constitution's controls on federal power. There could be no greater justification for senators to exercise their veto over treaties than the cause of protecting the individual liberties of Americans—including the right to bear arms.

Mr. Bolton, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, is a former U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Mr. Yoo is a law professor at the University of California at Berkeley and a scholar at AEI.

Last month, with a lot of help from Barack Obama, the United Nationspassed its global gun ban treaty.

And now, Obama is expected to sign this freedom-crushing disaster assoon as June 3rd — just days from now!!

The only way you and I can stop the Obama-U.N. collusion fromtrampling our Second Amendment freedoms is through the U.S. Senate.

Only the Senate can ratify treaties. So I need your help to convince astrong majority of our Senators to vote NO on the U.N. Arms TradeTreaty by signing this petition today.<http://www.nramedia.org/t/1648714/79123757/26284/0/ek=1330E10010>

<http://www.nramedia.org/t/1648714/79123757/26284/0/ek=1330E10010>Your signed petition is the best tool we have againstthis attack on our gun rights and our national sovereignty. We need toline the halls of the Senate with boxes and boxes of these petitions — *andevery petition counts, starting with yours!*

We need to send a clear message to every Senator that they have onlytwo choices: Side with us and stop the U.N. gun ban treaty...or startlooking for a new job at election time.

So please, sign your petition today<http://www.nramedia.org/t/1648714/79123757/26284/0/ek=1330E10010>...we have zero time to lose. And after you do, I hopethat you'll make a much-needed contribution to NRA-ILA so we can WINTHIS FIGHT.

We need to hammer key battleground states with hard-hitting radio andT.V. ads. We need to blanket the Senate with millions of thesepetitions. We need to put our grassroots boots on the ground and winevery last vote we need to stop this dangerous treaty before itbecomes the law of the land.

But all of this costs money, and our resources are stretched thinright now. This year, we've been forced to spend more than we've everspent ...because the attacks we're facing have been bigger thananything we've ever faced before.

So please, sign your petition<http://www.nramedia.org/t/1648714/79123757/26284/0/ek=1330E10010> and then make an emergency contribution of $15, $25,$50, $100, or any other amount you can afford to NRA-ILA today. Everydollar counts, and every dollar will be spent stopping the Senate fromratifying the U.N. gun ban treaty.

Again, we have no time to lose...June 3rd is only DAYS away!

Working together, I know we can save our freedom from thisunprecedented attack.

P.S. *President Obama is threatening to sign the U.N. gun ban treatyas soon as June 3rd*. You have to ACT NOW if you want to stop him andthe U.N. from trampling your constitutional Right to Keep and BearArms.

So please, sign this petition as soon as you can. And when you do,please make an emergency contribution to NRA-ILA to help us win thisfight!

NRA-ILA is putting every last ounce of our strength and energy intostopping the ratification of the U.N. gun ban treaty. *But our effortscould fall short unless you help today.*

“Self-defence is sometimes designated as a ‘right’. There is inadequate legal support for such an interpretation. Self-defence is more properly characterized as a means of protecting the right to life and, as such, a basis for avoiding responsibility for violating the rights of another. No international human right of self-defence is expressly set forth in the primary sources of international law: treaties, customary law, or general principles.”

The U.N. Resolution 2117 lists 21 points dealing with firearms control, but perhaps of most interest is point number 11: "CALLS FOR MEMBER STATES TO SUPPORT WEAPONS COLLECTION, DISARMAMENT ---

I am sorry to see so many states have a sorry record of the 2nd amendment support. 46 Senators Voted to Give your 2nd Amendment Constitutional Rights to the U.N.

Now, Which 46 Senators Voted to Destroy Us? Well, let their names become known !! See below . If you vote in one of the states listed with these 46 "legis..traitors". vote against them.

In a 53-46 vote, the Senate narrowly passed a measure that will stop the United States from entering into the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty. The Statement of Purpose from the Bill reads: "To uphold Second Amendment rights and prevent the United States from entering into the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty." The U.N. Small Arms Treaty, which has been championed by the Obama Administration, would have effectively placed a global ban on the import and export of small firearms. The ban would have affected all private gun owners in the U.S. and had language that would have implemented an international gun registry, now get this, on all private guns and ammo.

Astonishingly, 46 out of our 100 United States Senators were willing to give away our Constitutional rights to a foreign power.

Moving crews have packed up desks, lamps, chairs, office supplies and other personal items of numerous Democrat Senate and House offices now vacated after November's election. But in a suite of offices located directly across from the Senate Floor, there were relics from the list of bills that passed the U.S. House and sat without action inside Harry Reid's office. Somewhere in that stack likely sits an anti-gun treaty signed by Secretary of State John Kerry.To his credit, outgoing-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid likely knew the United Nation's Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) (full text here) would never meet the two-thirds majority requirement for ratification. But as of Christmas Eve, the treaty has gone into effect internationally.The UN General Assembly first approved the ATT in April 2013 and Kerry signed it on Sept. 24, 2013, amid criticism from the Republican side of the upper chamber's aisle.No action has been taken to move the treaty to a vote for U.S. Senate ratification, but 61 nations have ratified the treaty and 69 additional nations have signed without ratification by their own governments. The ATT is legally binding only to the 61 nations whose governments have procedurally embraced the global legislation.Likely, Reid avoided the self-inflicted damage to Democrats in an election cycle that would result with a recorded vote on a UN arms control effort. Then again, Democrats didn't fair all that well as it was.According to Kerry and Barack Obama -- of "bitter clingers" fame -- the ATT will protect Americans and other global citizens from the dangers of illicit small arms trade (smaller munitions, sea and land mines, rockets). They assure us that the treaty's jurisdiction would apply only to international trade and not infringe upon domestic gun rights.Kerry trumpeted, "Make no mistake, we would never think about supporting a treaty that is inconsistent with ... the rights of American citizens to be able to exercise their guaranteed rights under our Constitution." Spare us the idea that Democrats have anything but contempt for gun rights.Why would any American who values the Constitution and the Second Amendment have concerns about the negative implications on our national security and the right to bear arms?First, on a foreign policy level, Obama and Kerry have essentially signaled their willingness for an international body made up of rogue and terrorist nations to define the appropriate movement and utilization of certain weapons and munitions. It's foreign policy for dummies ... and on purpose.The treaty permits post-ratification amendments by a three-quarters majority vote of the UN General Assembly that would completely circumvent the power of our legislative involvement. Nothing says "Smart Foreign Policy" like allowing your potential enemies to amend an agreement to their advantage.Second, on the domestic front, the ATT would mandate export/import controls requiring the importing country to collect information of the "end user" of a firearm, retain that information for 20 years, and provide that information to the exporting county. So if you purchased, say, a Beretta shotgun, you would be deemed an end user and the treaty would obligate the U.S. government to provide the Italian government with the record of your purchase and your contact information. If the U.S. should fail to do so, exports could be banned to the U.S.In January 2013, Sen. Jerry Moran (R-KS) put forward an omnibus appropriations bill that prevented funding of any types of implementation of the ATT. The legislation received 53 votes for passage, with 46 opposed -- all Democrats.Our North American brethren, the Canadians, rejected the ATT outright. Yes, even Canada. Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird included in his remarks these direct statements: "It is important that such a treaty should not affect lawful and responsible firearms owners nor discourage the transfer of firearms for recreational uses such as sport shooting and hunting. We'll make sure that any treaty we sign onto is good for Canada, and good for Canadians‎."Sounds like bitter clingers are not limited to the GOP, eh?In a twist that sounds more like supporting what your enemy opposes, Israel signed the treaty just before the deadline. Iran and other terrorist states determined to eliminate Israel's existence openly oppose the ATT. Israel can do no right in the eyes of the United Nations, so if its strategy is to remove one criticism from the table it's unlikely to achieve much.With a Republican majority now in the U.S. Senate, this treaty won't see a vote and will not legally bind the U.S. But that may not stop the Obama administration, which had no problem trafficking guns to Mexican drug cartels, from infringing on the Second Amendment anyway.